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If you start investing for your offspring or grandchildren at the earliest possible opportunity, you’ve got 18 years to let their money grow.

Junior Isas should be the first accounts to consider as they will allow you to build up a pot on their behalf. The interest paid on the cash Jisa and the yield on the stocks and shares version will all be tax-free.

Investment or "stocks and shares" Jisas could give you double the return.

Jisas are designed to be long-term savings vehicles so there should be time to ride out market fluctuations and recoup any losses by the time your child turns 18 and can access the funds.

But with more than 3,000 mainstream funds to choose from, the decision can be daunting.

We’ve asked four experts to suggest their favourite Jisa funds for your children and grandchildren giving reasons for their choice.

Alison Treharne, a financial planner at Shore Financial Planning, said her first choice of fund for a child was the £3.5bn Artemis Global Income. The fund has an ongoing charge of 0.81pc and invests in profitable, cash generating companies.

The manager, Jacob de Tusch Lec, employs a range of investment styles.

These include core holdings of reliable blue chip companies, growth stocks - firms that are increasing earnings relative to their rivals, and firms in "special situations" such as undergoing a restructure or priming for a merger.

Mr de Tusch Lec will then tilt the portfolio depending on his view of the economy and market conditions.

Reinvesting the dividends is an excellent way to grow your capital over the long term, Ms Treharne added

Another favourite of Ms Treharne’s is Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust which has just been promoted to the FTSE 100 index of leading British stocks. It currently charges an annual fee of 0.45pc.

But from April 1 it is reducing the annual management charge.

A 0.3pc fee will apply to the first £4bn of assets, but will fall to 0.25pc after this. This will have the affect of trimming ongoing fees to 0.44pc.

There is currently over £5bn invested in the fund.

It is designed to be a long term hold, with exposure spread broadly across the world but is currently tilted towards the US - Amazon accounts for around 10pc of the portfolio.

Patrick Connolly, a financial adviser at Chase De Vere, suggested Witan Investment Trust’s Jump Junior Isa which he uses for his own son's savings.

It uses 12 different specialist fund managers and spreads risk by investing in over 500 shares from around the world. Returns are likely to be similar to the stock market index - the FTSE 100 currently yields 3.8pc.

The fund charges 0.4pc per annum - which is cheaper than most other managed funds - but it also applies a fee of £31.60 a year which means it wouldn’t be suitable for those with less than £2,000 to invest.

Mr Connolly also recommended HSBC’s FTSE All Share Index which, as the name suggests, aims to replicate the British stock market. Therefore the largest holdings in the fund will be the largest shares in the index such as HSBC itself and oil firms Royal Dutch Shell and BP.

Charges are extremely low at 0.07pc. This is because it is a "tracker" fund that mimics an index and does not employ a fund manager to make individual stock selections.

Jonothan McColgan, a financial planner at Combined Financial Strategies, said with a 15-to-20 year time frame in mind, he would always suggest a more adventurous approach focused purely on investments in global companies.

Mr McColgan said his favoured "active" funds for a Jisa would be Schroder Multi Manager International for those who do not mind “spending a little more to get a very widely diversified global portfolio”. It has an annual charge of 1.44pc, which is at the higher end of fees.

For a cheaper alternative, Mr McColgan suggested the £9.8bn Fundsmith Equity fund, managed by founder Terry Smith, which maintains a concentrated portfolio of between 20 and 30 holdings. It looks for low-debt companies with business models insulated from technological change.

The fund is slightly cheaper at 0.97pc a year, Mr McColgan thinks the two funds complement each other and could be used in tandem.

For those parents that are too worried to jump into stocks when markets are at record highs, Mr McColgan advised them to spread the investment over a period of time by making regular contributions.

He said: “As these funds on their own are all relatively speculative in nature and purely invested in stocks you should expect a large amount of volatility.

“However, this volatility that you find scary also represents a great opportunity if you are disciplined.”

Mr McColgan said committing to investing the same amount on the same day every month for your child is an effective way of investing long term.

He said: “If investments drops you actually benefit from buying more units or shares for the same price as last month and allows you to benefit from “pound cost averaging”.

“This means the volatility allows you to buy your average unit or share at a cheaper value than if you invested it all in at once.”

Anna Sofat, founder and managing director of Addid Wealth suggested the popular "passive" fund Vanguard Lifestrategy 80, a highly diversified fund which invests 80pc in global stocks and charges just 0.22pc a year.

Another cost efficient option is BlackRock's iShares Core MSCI World Acc, which tracks the MSCI World Index and charges even less, at a 0.2pc annual fee.

For parents and grandparents who would prefer an actively managed fund, Ms Sofat suggested the Finsbury Growth and Income Trust. This is an investment trust which means it trades on the stock market, like any other listed company.

Though currently trading at a very slight premium (0.67pc) to the value of its underlying assets, Ms Sofat said the price difference should not be big enough to deter investors.